Is Buhari that politically naive?

The nomination last week of Mr. William Babatunde Fowler as Chairman of the Federal Inland Revenue Service, FIRS has indeed taken the political barometer of the nation one notch higher.


Coming days before the long-expected September date for the unveiling of President Muhammadu Buhari’s list of ministers, the commentary waves are agog as to both the significance of this nomination, and going forward, its contribution to the entire ‘sub-industry of appointments-guessing’ that has since arisen on account of the President’s holding the ball so close to his chest.
Of course, as the nominal captain of the Lagos Internal Revenue Service, LIRS team that grew the average monthly internally generated revenue profile of Lagos State from N3billion to N20.6 billion there is a sense in which Fowler could ordinarily be considered for the position. But there could indeed be more than meets the eye, as we say in these parts.


So why was Fowler nominated? Of course as with all other matters in the current Buhari dispensation, only the President knows. But given the nominees closeness to APC leader, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, with whom the President has had a frosty relationship on account of the failure of critical earlier nominees which both Tinubu and the nominal APC high command had so authoritatively endorsed, there has necessarily come a reading of the Fowler nomination as a kind of rapprochement; a reaching out by Buhari himself to smoothen rough edges in his relationship with Tinubu.


But then there is another reading. And this is; that in nominating Fowler, Buhari may very well be throwing his cards on the table and like an accomplished Chess master, be goading the other levers of power in the APC and the nation to throw theirs in also ahead of the bigger fights that are ahead. These would include; the screening and clearing of ministers, nominations into boards, ambassadors-designate, as well as critical agencies like the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. And then there is the 2016 budget.


If this is so, and we can indeed demonstrate that there is indeed more method than randomness to the political moves of the President since his emergence on the scene, then it will suggest that so many of us been so glibly mis-reading Mr. Buhari and in the process giving him less credit than he actually deserves in the complex world of political brinksmanship.


Again if this is so, we should equally then be looking at a rather more determinate set of variables going forward even as we undertake a holistic review of every step he has taken so far since his return to the nation’s political frontlines.


Was Mr. Buhari’s decision to run in the 2015 presidential polls - after having earlier suggested he would not - be just a casual or indeed a programmed shift? Was his assiduously working with Tinubu and other opposition leaders to ensure the emergence and rise to prominence of the APC in those heady days of the party’s emergence not indicative of the fact that, he was, even at that time, already embarked on the path of an ambition that is definitely ‘made of sterner stuff,’ a la William Shakespeare.


There is even more. Was his carefully choreographed insistence on a 3-point agenda of ‘reversing insecurity, fighting corruption and curbing unemployment’ even when the APC manifesto and the mood of the nation indicating a much broader package not a deliberate act of only putting on the table what he was personally interested in? Was his relative ‘aloofness’ in the battle for the leadership of the National Assembly only coincidental? Is the delay in naming ministers merely attributable to what Femi Adesina has expressed as ‘slow and steady wins the race?’


The sum of all of this is that we may need to be more thoughtful than we are presently. It would appear that some persons may not have been reading Mr. Buhari correctly. It would appear that the man may be packing far-more political muscle than we have currently bothered to ascribe to him? And the implications would indeed be most interesting in the days ahead.


Which would then leave us with one final point; and this has to do with the ends to which this presently unraveling sense of political astuteness of Mr. President would be deployed to serve? Is it going to be in the larger interests of Nigeria, patriotically defined, or would it be to some self-serving or parochial ends?


Whichever way it would go however, this writer is comforted by the infallible verdict of history which ultimately yet brings every hidden matter to light. Dribble as brilliantly as you can, every mystery on earth eventually comes into the light. And then there is a second truth: propositions, no matter how lofty, do not really stand except they accord with the will of God.
So there is no fretting over our new-found discovery that Mr. Buhari is indeed packing more than what some had thought he had. Indeed, there is even a reassuring ring to the fact that he is this much endowed given the fact that many of our pundits have actually not based their earlier profiling of him on hard and immutable evidence that can stand the test of logical and exegetical inquiry. So let the real Mr. Buhari stand up to be counted and this nation will back him only to the extent that his agenda does indeed correlate with the greater interests of our people. God bless Nigeria!